Too Many Calories

Atkins isn’t an “eat as much meat as you want diet”. You do get to load up on a lot of high protein, high fat foods, but you should still be tracking your calories to try and stay in a calorie deficit.

So how many calories should you eat? You’ll want to stay in a calorie deficit range of 200-300 in the initial stages of the diet. You’ll adjust your deficit as you progress the diet, and find your personal “maintenance range” in the final phase.

This is where you find the carb and calorie range you should be in for long term maintenance. Where you don’t gain or lose anymore weight.

Not Enough Calories

This one seems incredibly counter intuitive, but it’s because of the way your metabolism works. The best way to think of your metabolism is like a temperature, and not a switch.

Your metabolism will run hot (burn a lot of calories) or cold (not burn a lot of calories) depending on specific variables.

And one of those variables is how much you eat everyday. If you reduce your total calories to an incredibly low level, and create a huge calorie deficit, your metabolism will begin to slow and burn calories at a slower rate.

It’s just your metabolism doing its job, which is make sure you don’t run out of energy needed for basic functions like breathing and stuff.

Don’t be afraid to eat more. As long as you aren’t overeating carbs, or go into a calorie surplus, you’ll be fine.

Not Drinking Enough Water

There’s a few reasons why it’s important to drink plenty water on the Atkins diet. First, you’re removing many of the water sources you’d typically get from food like fruit and many vegetables. So once you start the diet, you’re already in a water deficit compared to what your body is used to.

The other reasons are dehydration, and water retention. If you aren’t getting enough water everyday your body will begin to store more water as a precaution resulting in a few extra pounds.

If you aren’t losing weight on Atkins it could be due to water weight, and water retention offsetting your weight loss when you step on the scale.